A Sonic 2 Bug

I have never seen this bug listed anywhere on a Sonic codes or cheats site.
I am wondering if, in fact, anyone else has a copy of the game that does this.
If not, we may have a beta on our hands. I make no guarantees about the availability of this ROM.

This ROM is an NTSC Sonic 2. There are no differences between the cartridge or box art, and the manual is the same. As a result, I am leery of calling this a beta.

When playing Sonic 2 in two player mode, if one player finishes the level and the other proceeds to lose all of his/her lives, then the usual "Game Over" message is not displayed and the game loads the 1P/2P wins screen. (However, TIME OVER will load is the last life is lost due to running out of time. :huh: ) I believe this relates to loading the TO data at the end of a level when one player finishes. However, there is more. When the next level is loaded, the player that got G.O. will have zero lives according to the HUD. If that player dies again (without receiving another life) he or she will have "y5" lives (255 lives). This was discovered only a week ago by my 5 and 7 year old sisters, who were playing Sonic 2 on our Genesis.

This bug occurs without the use of any extra codes or cheats.

It is possible to win the level if you have a higher total number of rings, item boxes, and points even if you get a game over in this way.

What I ask of you all, then, is to dust off your Sonic 2 cartridges and look for this bug. I am also curious to know whether or not this was fixed in the revision one or rumored revision 2 or the SEGA Smash Pack 2 revision. (If it was fixed on Rev 00 ROMs, we probably have a beta.) My PC is down so I'm using a work PC for this, and do not want to download some potential virus-carrying ROMs.

Yes, I did say SEGA Smash Pack 2 revision. On SP2, there is a version of Sonic 2 that has 2-P mode edits. It allows the 2-P mode to load without graphic condension (original game screen ratio is preserved, though the screens are square and not recatngular). I no longer have a PC running ME, so if somebody else can try this, their info is much appreciated. Thank You!

EDIT: Changed topic name, I'm sure I alienated some of you with my "is it a BETA bug" subtitle. After all, I'm still in the trial stage. SORRY!

 

That's the problem. I really can't I.D. it. It came from my grandfather, who owns a store that used to rent videogames and movies (now they just fix some electronics and install language labs). I have no idea how he acquired it, and I don't think he remembers. Like you say, it probably came off a game store shelf. None of the other games I got from him seem like betas or prereleases, and we have a copy of Sonic 3 (without a boxart or manual unfortuantely) that seems the final copy.

Geez, it would be great if it was provided by SEGA in a way similar to all those evalutation "not for sale" videos (as in evaluate whether or not to buy a bunch of rental copies) that they recieved (some of which we have in our house). I think this is unlikely, however.

I also suspect that it is an average bug; the only thing that throws me off is that nobody else, it seems, has said anything about it. Still, this could be just because nobody else has played Sonic 2 2-Player that much (and I haven't known this myself until VERY recently).

Besides, this is the only possible difference

This is the reason I'm asking for others to try this on their own Sonic 2 carts. (I can't try my ROMs at the moment with my PC down -- if I could, I would.) If it exists in theirs, this is not a late beta, which wouldn't surprise me either.

If it does, I want to see if it exists in Rev. 01 or 02 (Sonic Compilation version, visit sonicology for a download). If it's fixed only in the Rev. 02, it will be the first real information we have on this being a real revision.

In any case, it's not bad to have a collection of known Sonic 2 bugs like what was done with Sonic 3 a while back.

 

Really? It's the first I'd actually heard of it!

Now, my next question, as I mentioned above in my obscenely long post is whether or not anybody else knows whether or not this occurs on all revisions of the game or not. I would try it myself but the only computer that I have is my father's work computer and I don't want it to get damaged with a virus or whatnot. [And since that was the only computer we have that would play it properly, since it had ME, I can't test the Smash Pack 2 version. Blasted compatibility errors!]
If I had a usable PC, I would go out and download the Sonic Compilation version right now.

The bug being normal doesn't surprise me, though. (As you may have noticed, it's a thought I've tried to downplay but still put because at that point I couldn't rule it out.) Again the only reason I thought this could be a beta is that I have never seen this cheat mentioned anywhere else. (Maybe it just was that I wasn't looking hard enough. *shame, shame*)